Vamsi Vakulabharanam is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Previously, he taught at the University of Hyderabad (2008-14) and the City University of New York (2004-07). He was a grantee at the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET, NY) between 2011 and 2014 on a project titled, ‘Economic Development and Inequality: What Can the Asian Experience Teach Us?’ He was a Fellow of the India China Institute of the New School (NY) between 2008 and 2010. He has worked on issues pertaining to agrarian change in the context of globalization in developing economies, agrarian cooperatives, and the relationship between economic development and inequality. His recent research focuses on inequality in the contemporary Asian economies, including India and China.

By this expert

Global Crises, Equalizing and Dis-equalizing Capitalist Regimes: The Case of 20th Century Asian Political Economy

Paper Conference paper | | Apr 2015

The logic of deep global capitalist crises needs to be incorporated centrally into an understanding of the changes in the within-country inequality levels. I present a theoretical framework that incorporates two levels of political economic processes. First,global capitalist crises lead to the creation of an institutional structure or a regime in the capitalist centers that influences inequality in these core countries and in the periphery. Second the class configuration in the non-core countries - a set of institutional arrangements that can be termed local political economy - also plays a key role in determining inequality outcomes.

Featuring this expert

Diversity Is Development

Video | Jul 27, 2022

INET grantee Vamsi Vakulabharanam describes his work to gather parallel social threads—such as class, caste, gender and religion—to better understand the mechanisms of inequality in India, and why this can lead to better outcomes around the world.

Azim Premji Winter School 2013

Event Workshop | Jan 6–17, 2013

The Azim Premji University-Institute for Economic Thinking Advanced Graduate Workshop in Poverty, Development and Globalization is interested in identifying the complex global interactions that influence poverty and development as well as the development strategies that have proven successful in promoting equitable growth, promoting capabilities, and reducing poverty.

Inequality in Asia: The Local Effects of Global Capitalism

Video | Feb 16, 2012

Inequality did not increase during the early stages of economic development in Japan and the East Asian Tigers. But in India and China it did. Why is that?